"What's the matter with ye, Ma? Didn't I tell you he's a friend o' Miss Montgomery? She told me all about him. We're goin' down to New York together to see her. Where's my shirt? He's invited me. You needn't to worry. I may be gone a few days. I'll write you a letter when I get there. I'm goin' to take the dog. We're goin' on the seven o'clock stage an' mebbe I'll find out somethin' about goin' to college. I'm goin' to college this fall if there's any way. I don't know whether he's had any supper. You might give him a doughnut. He's on the front stoop. Say, where is my clean shirt, Ma? It's gettin' late."
Daniel had thrown off his coat and was struggling with a refractory buckle of his suspenders as he talked. His mother was roused at last to her duties, and brought the shirt, with which he vanished to the loft. Then the mother, partly to reassure herself about the stranger, filled a plate with cold ham, bread and butter, a generous slice of apple pie, and three or four fat doughnuts, and cautiously opened the front door.
Rags, not having to change his clothes, had remained with Charles, and was enjoying a friendly hand on his head while he sat alert waiting for what was to happen next. When Dan appeared things would move, he knew, and he meant to be in them. He wasn't going to trust any verbal promises. He was going with them if he had to do it on the sly.
Charles arose and received the bountiful supper graciously. When Mrs. Butterworth saw the manner of the stranger who sat on her front settle she was ashamed to be handing him a plate outside, as if he were a tramp. "Dan'l said you wouldn't come in," she said hospitably, "and I couldn't bear not to give you a bite to eat. You should 'a' happened 'long sooner, while supper was hot. We all thought a lot o' Miss Montgomery. Was you her brother, perhaps?"
While she had prepared the lunch, she had questioned within herself what sort of "friend" this might be with whom Dan was going to visit the teacher. If Dan wanted to "make up" to Teacher, why did he not go alone?
Charles perceived that Daniel had not explained to his mother, and, keeping his own counsel, returned pleasantly:
"Oh, no, not her brother," and he began to tell Mrs. Butterworth how glad he was to have her son's company on his visit to New York. His manner was so reassuring that she decided he was all right, and as Dan came down, his face shining from much soap, and his hair plastered as smoothly as his rough curls would allow, she said pleasantly:
"You'll see my boy don't get into bad company down in New York, won't you? I'm worried, sort of, fer his pa said last night there was cholera round."
Charles's face sobered in an instant.
"We'll take good care of each other, Mrs. Butterworth; don't you worry. I'm much obliged for your letting me have Daniel for company, and I'll try to make him have a pleasant time."